Digging
by rijane
Summary: Mick and Beth go digging back into her and their past. Sequel to 'See Me'


Title: "Digging"

Author's Note: To really "get" this piece, you should probably have read "See Me" Otherwise the ending and the purpose of the piece will really not make sense. But welcome to the party regardless.

This takes place after "Stronger" and "See Me" but before "Nine Months"

The load was light and the night was dark. A bottle of red swung from Beth's hand, a bottle of something else from Mick's, supplies strapped to his back.

"Here?" Mick pointed to a stretch of clean sand. No seaweed, no deep divots. He'd been repeating this suggestion every few paces as Beth bent to add some other little treasure to the pile in her pocket.

"No." She tilted a piece of beach glass against the faint moonlight and squinted before she thrust her hand out with the latest find. "What about this one?"

"Blue." Clink. "Are we walking to Mexico tonight?"

Beth closed her eyes and raised her chin, wine bottle in front of her like a divining rod. En pointe, she twirled, arced her leg and let gravity carry her forward.

Mick was one wobble away from dropping everything to catch her.

"This place," she landed heel to toe in the sand, facing a patch of scrub, Mick and the waves behind her. "It's perfect."

Sprays of sand kicked in the air as the blanket flew and settled. Beth threw off her sandals and attacked Mick's shoes, aglets whipping through eyelets.

"Socks at the beach? Really?"

"Don't tease the vampire," Mick nipped at her hand, then leaned back as Beth snaked over his legs and grabbed the hem of his shirt. He twisted out of it and she threw it atop the shoes, building a pile at the edge of the blanket. He thumbed her waist, beneath the fabric of her top, and as he lifted it up, kept his hands on her.

Shirt across her face, blind to him, Beth felt a touch of tongue between her breasts and shivered.

"Salty."

The T-shirt was off and she caught his grin. "If that's the bodily fluid you're interested in tonight, I can work with that."

"Can I see the menu first?" Mick ducked to her neck, sniffed out the patchwork of blue in the dark, tickling down the twists of chest, ribs, hip. He stopped at the edge of her shorts and breathed her in deep. He hooked fingers into her belt loop and pulled her down with him, onto his lap.

"Let's finish unpacking first," Beth snagged the bag Mick had carried and rummaged. Strawberries, a bag of chocolate kisses and two wine plastic wine glasses inside a red plastic bucket, a small shovel, towels.

"What exactly are we doing at the beach in the dark tonight, Beth?" Mick eyed the spread. Beth wiggled and stood. He put his arms behind his head, tracked her as she stepped off the blanket, squishing toes into the sand.

"I've been here before, you know."

"You have?"

"My tenth birthday party." She met his eyes but didn't see what she was looking for. Beth began twisting the diamond on her hand, a new nervous habit, and looked away from Mick, up the beach.

"We rented a beach house. My friends came, we drove up from Long Beach," she scooped up the spade. "And I buried treasure here. Somewhere."

"What kind of treasure?"

"Important treasure," she stepped toward the overhang of rock and paced out. "Things look so different now.

"You were invited, you know," Beth sat on the sand, grabbing handfuls and dumping it to the side. "You were invited every year."

"I know," sadness flitted across Mick's face.

"Did you ever come?"

"No."

"Never?"

"Not to a party," Mick sat up.

"So, other things then?" the movement of sand stopped and Beth let her current handful slip through her fingers.

Mick didn't answer.

"What things, Mick?"

"Just things."

"Is this how it's going to be, Mick?" Beth started digging, plunging the spade into the sand. "I said yes, I said I would spend the rest of my life with you. And you think you can't tell me about the parts I already have?"

"Beth," Mick rose.

"No, Mick, I'm serious," Beth stabbed at the sand. "We have to talk about this. What things did you come to?"

"Just," Mick wiggled, looked out at the ocean and not at his fiancée. "Things. A story. I read you a story once."

"When?" Beth tossed sand behind her, half of it slipping back into the shallow hole with her.

"You were eight."

"What else?" The shovel stopped.

"Beth, why do we have to talk about this?"

"Because I don't want my husband to know things about my life that I don't," Beth threw the shovel at Mick. A satisfying clunk of metal on flesh was her reward. "Start digging."

"Beth-"

"Dig. Now." She let Mick take her place.

"Yes, ma'am," the hole began growing deeper much faster, wide enough and deep enough for Mick to hop in, away from Beth, to dig.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"What was I supposed to say, Beth? I stalked you for years. I watched and got too close. I'm the reason…" Mick trailed off.

"For what?"

"If I hadn't been there, if I could have just walked away, maybe you could have a normal life. Maybe you'd have children and daylight and a human who could give you all that. Maybe you wouldn't be spending your picnic on a beach with a vampire, at night."

"Mick. Maybe I like the night. Maybe that's where the magic is," Beth knelt at the edge, letting her shadow fall over him. "Maybe I wouldn't have a man who digs for treasure with me in the moonlight. Maybe I couldn't live my life, any life, without you in it."

Their lips met and, for a tight moment, words failed. Beth breathed him in and wrapped her arms around him as if trying to hold him to her, pull him into her. Her hands pulled through his waves.

"Tell me what happened after Coraline," Beth let him go. "When did you come back?"

Mick tucked his head and began throwing sand and soil toward the overhang behind them.

"A few weeks after... It was a bad few weeks," he paused in his digging. "I came to your house, to make sure I didn't dream you. And you saw me. At least I thought you did. You were coloring and you got up, looked right out the window in the dark."

"Why did you come back?" Beth put a hand to his arm

"I don't know, Beth," he took her hand in his. "It was very dark and I just wanted to see the light."

"Oh, Mick," she brought his hand to her cheek, caught his cold in the warm crevice between her cheek and shoulder. Without letting go, she slid into the shallow hole with him. She lay against the soft cool dirt and curled in a ball guiding him down and his arms around her.

"You are a lot like your mother She never gave up. I got invitations to every birthday party, every Christmas, every graduation. I did come to one."

She felt his lips on the back of her neck and memories long forgotten bubbled up.

"I remember. I thought it was a dream, but," she hesitated. "You read to me..." a giggle popped out. "'I'll eat you up!'"

He nipped at her lightly.

"Eight-year-olds don't really get dry wit. Especially confused little girls who think their angels come with fangs."

"I liked the fangs. And the eyes. They made me feel safe, like nothing could touch me," Beth said.

"You managed to find trouble with or without me around," Mick pulled her tight against him. "You still do."

"I do not," Beth squirmed and rolled over to face him, tucking a knee between his. "Trouble finds me."

"Mmm-hmm. Chasing after cats in the middle of the night, lone horseback rides into the wilderness, hitting vamp bars, dancing into murder scenes. Nah. You don't look for trouble at all."

"Chasing cats?"

"Who do you think your mom called when you disappeared?" he put a finger to her cheek. "You were a naughty little girl."

"I was a wonderful child," Beth said. "And, speaking of birthdays, we should keep digging. We're almost there."

Beth disentangled herself and brushed the dirt from her stick skin. Mick reached up to flick away the dirt and sand, lingering at the small of her back, the curve of her calf. She poked the shovel into the bottom of the hole in starts and stops.

"A-ha," the shovel stopped in one spot. "Here."

With a series of small scoops, she cleared away a small section of dirt in the hole and squatted over it, fingers working at the edge of something. Finally, she rocked it free.

"I buried this here on my birthday," Beth looked up at Mick, who still looked puzzled. "I said goodbye to you here."

The peeling stickers were long gone, the sparkles, too. She remembered an angel box, big and beautiful. But this was just a box, even the cheap varnish gone in pieces.

She unlatched and lifted the lid. Everything was nearly as she remembered it. Packed tight inside was the best and worst of her childhood. Unexpected tears welled in her eyes.

She'd intended to show Mick how much he'd meant to her, how they could talk about it, how she'd be fine, just fine. But she was the one finding the truth tonight. How he touched every part of her.

The marbles were cool and smooth, the metal of the cap gun fit too small but heavy in her hand, a jump rope. She slipped a ring on her pinkie, the purple glass stone big and beautiful. Books, she shook free the roaring monsters and their boy king, secret gardens and sand fairies.

Beth looked at them and she saw Mick.

"They were from you."

He nodded, staring down at the box. He knelt facing her and a hand edged toward the treasures. Beneath the dirt and hints of decay, Mick smelled her, bright and clean and innocent. Different than this Beth.

He saw. That golden head hanging down, the salt smell hanging on her, feet dirty and burning on the sand, her little hands running over the wood in a fast farewell.

And beyond that, he saw himself, outside her window looking in, desperate and untouched, reaching for her, for something he could never have and leaving her what he could. A lost boy on the wrong side of the window, outside looking in.

Beth wiped at her own tears, eyes meeting his, and then put a hand to Mick's face, chasing the images away. He held her tight, clutched her as she held the box to her chest, and sprang out of the hole. He carried her to their blanket.

Mick sat and she wiggled between his legs.

"Read me a story," she fished out the tattered paperback and brushed it clean.

"The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another,. His mother called him 'wild thing!' and Max said 'I'll eat you up...'"


End file.
